Chapter 6

The Banished Man

Black Island was an empty place. While before, Tom had remembered the extinct volcano caldera to be bustling with aviators and fishermen, now most of the shacks and huts were abandoned and boarded up as the population scattered in the wake of MEDUSA. Only a few dozen inhabitants remained in the town, those without a boat or an airship and those who scoffed at the supposed range of London's superweapon. News travelled slowly among the diaspora, and few had heard of London's destruction, as only one airship had survived seeing the end of the traction city.

While the disabled Jenny Haniver was moored at the only open airdock in town, Hester took Tom to the local clinic, where the familiar turbaned doctor, Ibrahim Nazghul, laid him down upon a table and removed his bandages to observe his broken ribs. Tom struggled to see them, but quickly looked away from the black and blue bruises that stole the breath from his lungs as soon as they were free of their prison of tightly wrapped cloth.

"I must say, Thomas," the physician said as he shook his head disapprovingly, "Whatever you did at Batmunkh Gompa did not help the healing process at all. If anything, your ribs are more damaged than before. I thought Feng Hua was supposed to take care of you."

Tom didn't reply, the pain in his chest, both in his ribs and deeper, prevented him from telling the kindly doctor of Anna's fate. Instead, Hester spoke up from her chair across the room where she observed Tom's pain with an expression of what Tom guessed, what Tom hoped, was sympathy.

"Anna…" She struggled to find the words, "Anna died at the Shield Wall. She left the Jenny to us."

Nazghul frowned. He did not know Anna well, but he always enjoyed speaking to her every time she graced his clinic with an unfortunate 'accident' she received on the Bird Roads. He remembered all of them. Broken hands and glass cuts from bar-room brawls, the occasional stabbing from a trade deal gone wrong, even a gunshot wound she wouldn't tell him the origin of. He always told her that her reckless acquisition of injuries would kill her one day. He always hoped he would be wrong.

He sighed and looked again at Tom. "You won't be able to fly with these injuries. Until you're ribs are healed, you'll have to stay here on Black Island."

"How long will that take?" Tom groaned in pain.

"Two weeks at the least. I'll have to change the bandages daily. No strenuous exercise."

Hester gave a lopsided smile, "That's just about the same amount of time it'll take for the mechanic to fix the Jenny. We can rent a room somewhere in town in the meantime."

Nazghul gave the scarred girl a kindly smile as he wrapped Tom's torso in a set of fresh bandages, "You can stay here in my children's room. I sent them away with my wife after hearing of MEDUSA and they shouldn't be back for another month. That way I can keep an eye on those ribs and make sure they heal properly."

Tom and Hester thanked the doctor for his hospitality and set out to check on Anna's, on their airship. They were surprised to find that their ship, once the only one in the harbor, was now accompanied by a dozen others, eleven of them small semi-rigid blimps painted sky-blue and attached end to end to each other with ropes and cables. At the front of the line of airships berthed at the long, crescent-shaped harbor was a merchant freighter, Tom recognized it as a London-built Gideon 900, an older model popular after the Iron Winter of 919 TE. Upon its dark grey sides in faded white paint was labelled: 'Maxwell & Sons Air Shipping Ltd.'

"A Sky-Train!" Tom exclaimed, "I thought nobody used them anymore!"

"Nobody smart at least."

The voice came from behind them, and Tom and Hester turned to find an older man standing there, eyes fixed beyond them at the red airship moored at the end of the harbor. He wore a brown fleece-lined flight jacket that clashed somewhat with his navy blue pants and did nothing to draw attention away from his bushy grey mustache that hid his upper lip like a shaggy cloak. But what drew Tom's gaze wasn't his clothes or his mustache or his large flat-cap that sat above a mess of short, grey hair, it was the mark that lay upon the old man's wrinkled forehead. Above his darkened eyebrows was a bold, black 'X', faded over the years by the winds of the Bird Roads. It took Tom a few seconds to recognize that tattoo, a mere footnote in the London Guide of Guildmarks.

It was the mark of the Banished Man, one who was exiled from London and forbidden to return, destined to roam the Out-Country for the rest of their lives.

"Is that your ship?" the man asked in a hoarse voice. It wasn't a London accent, though there were some elements there. His words rose through his throat like an old chimney, as if he was an old lion who had roared his voice away.

Hester pulled up her scarf to hide her face. Until then, she was comfortable walking around the abandoned town unshawled with only Tom to see her. She tensed in the presence of this stranger, and her hand instinctively reached for where she usually sheathed her knives, only to have the disappointing realization that she had lost it after being captured on London.

Tom managed to nod to the man, his eyes remaining fixed upon the mark above his brow. The old man's gaze turned to Tom.

"Where is Anna Fang?" He asked, his eyes narrowing upon Tom in a way that made his ribs somehow hurt more than before. Still, he managed a reply.

"She's dead." It was all he could get out. Would he and Hester have to explain what happened to every person they came across? Would they have to lie and tell them that with her dying breath, Anna gave the Jenny to them? How did this man know Anna anyway?

"How?" The man's expression seemed not to change, yet his eyes betrayed his disappointment.

"She was killed in a duel. Valentine killed her at the Shield Wall."

"Valentine…" The man gave a small sigh, "Pity. I would like to have seen her again after all these years."

"Who are you?" Hester asked, growing impatient.

"My name is Karl Anders," he answered, "I'm an old friend of Anna's."

Anders invited Tom and Hester to dine with him at the only restaurant still open in town, an oyster bar named the Mermaid's Purse. Tom's curiosity of the man was the only reason they accepted, despite Hester's lingering suspicions. They sat at a rickety table crafted out of driftwood and old crabber cages under the dim light of a few homemade beeswax candles, and while Hester gladly ate the shellfish placed before her, Tom could only look unappetized at the strange, briny creatures held within the bowl of their own shells. A fourth person joined them: a girl, a bit younger than Hester with a dark, North African complexion and short, black hair. She said nothing, and quietly lapped up a bowl of oyster soup.

"This here is Spokes," Anders said, introducing the silent girl. "She's my engineer and co-pilot. Doesn't speak much, but I've never found anyone with a better knack for engines."

"Why is she named Spokes?" Tom asked.

"She was a slave I bought at an auction in Benghazi. All of them have names like that. 'Pulley', 'Hoist', 'Hammer', things they are good at, I guess."

"She's a slave?!" Hester gripped her fork tightly, her mouth twisted into a snarl.

"No, no, no." Anders quickly answered, "She's entirely free. A citizen of Manchester, in fact. She gets paid a hefty percentage of the profits of every delivery we make."

"And her parents?" Hester was still skeptical.

"Unfortunately deceased. Understand that I bought her to set her free, to take her in, to give her a real job…"

Anders looked over to where Spokes was sitting to find that she had slipped away during the discussion, leaving an empty bowl at her spot.

"Heh." He shook his head, "Still as quiet as ever."

"So how did you know Miss Fang?" Tom asked, pushing his full plate towards Hester who gladly started slurping the oysters out of their shells.

"That's a question with a really long answer, and one that I could ask you just as well." He popped an ugly looking prawn into his mouth, and Tom decided at that point that he did not care much for seafood. "How did you two come to possess Anna's ship?"

His stare was accusing, in a way that offended Hester. "We didn't kill her, if that's what you're implying."

He scoffed, "I don't think the two of you could have brought her down if her hands were tied behind her back. A scrawny, scarred mossie girl and a London kid against the Wind Flower? No. I believe your story about the duel with Valentine. Neither of you seem like the killing type anyway. At least, not yet."

Tom shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his mind turning to the horrified faces of Pewsey and Gench, and to the death throes of Shrike on the eastern shore of the island. Anders noticed his discomfort, and was about to comment when (thankfully) the owner and sole employee of the restaurant, a local man named Baku, walked by to refill Anders' wine cup for the fourth time that night. Despite the amount of drink he had consumed, Anders seemed no different in speech or action. Noticing Tom fidgeting, the proprietor spoke up in broken Anglish.

"You want wine, Thomaz Stalker-killer?"

The title made Anders' raise a bushy eyebrow, and he exchanged a glance with Hester, whose eye flicked back in response. Tom refused, and the three returned to their conversation.

"Honestly," Anders started once Baku left earshot, "It really doesn't matter how you met Anna or how you have her ship. If you were thieves you wouldn't have agreed to dine with a stranger. Doing things like that is a good way to get yourselves killed, mind you. We'll have plenty of time to trade stories later, if you accept my offer."

Tom looked back at the old man, confused. "Your offer? What offer?"

"I need to make a delivery with the Sky-Train, but the engines on my lead airship aren't powerful enough for the load in the contract. I've been looking to hire another airship to act as a second aeromotive and the Jenny Haniver is more than capable for the job. I'm willing to offer a percentage of the profits as payment. Are you interested?"

Tom turned to Hester, who started asking a barrage of questions. What was to be delivered? Who was it for? Where was it coming from/going to? What money was to be made?

Anders answered them all. "It's a shipment of archeology equipment we're picking up in the Yerevan conurbation and delivering to Alex-Ria at their dig site in Giza. We're expecting to gain about two tons of aluminium bullion. That's about…" He stopped to think for a second, counting with his fingers and mouthing calculations. "Three hundred and sixty thousand London Quirkes by '97 standards, though I expect Quirkes have fallen in value since then."

Tom gaped at the numbers. He knew that since the techniques the Ancients used to refine aluminium were lost, the metal became exceedingly precious, especially in the air trade as its light weight allowed it to be transported easily, but he never imagined that it would be like this. The chest aboard the Jenny contained less than half the value of what Anders proposed, and most of that was going to the airship's repairs. This was an opportunity that could not be missed.

Hester was still skeptical. "What percentage would we get?"

"Twenty-five percent. A quarter of the profits."

"Half." Hester was a novice to price negotiation, but she knew her cards well. "Where else could you find another airship? It will be months until they stop fleeing this part of the Hunting Ground. We're all you got."

"I can give you two a third, and no more. Otherwise I'll pay Baku to inflate his blimp and do the job for half that."

"You said that the Jenny was perfect for the job," Tom chimed in, "we can do it for thirty-five percent, plus the cost of repairs for the Jenny Haniver."

"Done." Anders had seen the state of the airship. What he was offering Tom and Hester was far more than he would offer in any other situation, but this was an extraordinary circumstance. He shook their hands, paid for the table, and left the two young aviators to discuss their new lives among the sky.

It was past dusk when Hester left Dr. Nazghul's house, slipping silently from the room she shared with a now-sleeping Tom Natsworthy and across the squeaky floorboards to the front door. She crept through the dark streets of the small town, her eye quickly adjusting to the grey outlines of empty buildings and abandoned carts and stalls lit by pale starlight unpolluted by streetlamps or candles. She made her way to the western edge of town, walking past boarded up storefronts and locked homes in a path she struggled to recall from memory. In the darkness she failed to spot or notice the silhouette that watched her from the shadows.

"It's a bit late for a stroll, Miss. Shaw."

Hester rounded to face her would-be assailant, clutching at the large scalpel she had 'borrowed' from Dr. Nazghul's surgical supplies and stuffed into her belt. Her hand relaxed when she recognized the figure.

"Anders!" The man stepped into the street, revealing his aged face to the starlight. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question, but I have a pretty good idea already. I thought I could offer a bit of help." Anders tossed an object to Hester, who barely caught it in both hands. It was a shovel.

"What? How…"

"When I first got here, Baku told me about how a boy slew a steel djinn along the western side of the crater. A long time ago I encountered a similar creature. A Stalker known only as the Collector. With Anna's help, we were able to destroy it, but I know how hard those things are to kill."

Hester looked up from the shovel in her hands to see that Anders had brought his own. She was about to speak when Anders started again.

"Anna told me of another Stalker, one that had a name. I heard the legends, how it was the sole survivor of the Lazarus Brigade, how it was a veteran of the Battle of Three Dry Ships, how it served as an executioner in Paris and later became a bounty hunter aboard the village of Strole. I also heard of how it adopted a daughter, a disfigured orphan girl that they called 'Death's Little Helper'."

He stared at her now, his eyes filled with… something. Was it pity? Disgust? Hester couldn't tell.

"You were that little girl, weren't you?"

Hester nodded, unable to speak. It was then that she heard the whirring noise of a four cylinder engine approaching along the road. Behind a pair of bright headlights was a small excursion buggy, a Pink's Patent Landshark 6x6 intended to be carried aboard larger airships. Behind the control levers was Spokes, who was dwarfed even by the tiny cockpit in which she sat in. She looked to Anders and then Hester, betraying no emotion in the process. Though she said nothing, the length of time she spent staring at Hester's shawled face indicated an unspoken question to Anders, who gave the answer to Hester instead.

"Spokes here is going to take us to the western shore, so that we can bury your friend. Nobody, not even a Resurrected Man, should be left to rot in the swamp."

As the three travelled beneath the starlit shadow of Black Island's crater and started plowing through the boggy fields outside of the town, Hester felt glad to have run into Anders when she did. The trail was rough and pocketed with mud pits and gnarled roots, to the degree where Hester doubted her leg, which was still healing from the crossbow bolt it received in London, could weather the trek. She had forgotten how long the journey from the hillside to the town had been even on horseback, as her mind then had stewed with grief and anger. She felt those feelings bubble up again, but the anger she felt was no longer against Tom; she had forgiven him for Shrike's death rather quickly in her opinion. The anger she felt had no real target, no real center. It came with the realization that now, losing Shrike, she was once again an orphan, once again alone.

Well, almost alone.

"What do you think of that boy, Tom?" Anders asked from his bench opposite to hers, "Have you two been travelling together for long?"

"We only met a short while ago, aboard London," Hester answered, giving a quick version of the story, had it really only been a few days? "He was a Historian, or something, and he sort of… stopped me from doing something stupid."

Hester was glad that Tom stopped her from killing Valentine that day. Otherwise she would never have met him. "We ended up falling out of London and had to catch up with it. He helped me out along the way, as did Anna. But when we finally got back to London…"

Hester did not mourn for London, not truly. She hated to see Tom grieve. To see him feel what she felt whenever she thought about her parents: Pandora, David, and, yes, even Shrike. "He didn't deserve to lose so much. Tom saw his city die, his world go up in flames. After what he's done for me, I can't just let him end up like… like me!"

She didn't know what it was that caused her to burst out like that, as if she had walked into a crowded market and removed her scarf for all the world to see. Hit by a sudden pang of shame, she lifted her shawl high on her face, making sure it obscured her empty eye socket and mangled nose.

Even in the dark, Anders' eyes shone with nothing but sincerity. "The world is a cruel place at times, Hester, but you know that only too well." He looked over his shoulder to Spokes, who wordlessly guided the small rover down the slope towards the wave-swept shore below. "Spokes lost her family to slavers, in a way she still won't tell me about. Anna lost her parents the same way aboard Arkangel. I've lost my family, my job, and my home long ago. We lose everything, yet still we live, still we linger. We owe it to ourselves to find out why, to have a reason for living."

"What's yours?" Hester asked.

Anders couldn't answer, glancing from Hester to his feet, then towards Spokes, who suddenly spoke up.

"We're here."

The bog was black. Blacker than the night sky above. Blacker than it seemed to have been the night Shrike strode out of the darkness, his two gleaming eyes shining like poisoned stars pulled from the heavens. Now, with his eyes darkened for the first time in centuries, the bog was once again home to the blackness.

Even with the buggy's headlights illuminating the potholed bed of the marsh, the bog seemed to swallow light, just as it had done to Chrysler Peavey not too long ago. The bodies of the rest of his crew were still there, save Janny Maggs, who had also fallen into a similar patch of bog, never to be seen again. Ames was the first one that they found, his lifeless corpse propped up against a large rock that protruded from the bed of the marsh, his shirt stained with mud, or was it blood? Hester couldn't tell. Hester didn't care.

The next body they found was Mungo's, or at least the next body parts. His head was laid on the ground two yards away from the rest of him, his face still contorted in visible shock and fear, despite the decay. Hester picked up the dead pirate's hand cannon from a patch of mud where Mungo had discarded it. She then brushed off a hefty layer of grime and observed it in the light, noting the etchings and stampings left both by the gunsmith and the pirate who, in all probability, killed the original owner. Most of the markings were in a Germanic language, but a few more recent ones were scratched into the barrel and the receiver, most of them containing expletives or tally marks. The gun was empty, and the trigger mechanism was filled with debris, but with a bit of care and cleaning, it might work again. Hester stuffed the pistol into her belt and continued on.

The body of Shrike, a great iron carcass that shone in the reflection of Anders' flashlight, was sprawled out upon a flat piece of damp grass atop a small hill. For the first time, Hester was able to actually notice the sheer damage Shrike had taken in his pursuit of her. His long, black coat had virtually disintegrated by now, clothing his armored form in little more than bullet strewn rags that hung over his corpse in loose strips of cloth. One of Shrike's legs looked inverted, as if a great force had bent his knee the wrong way. His arms were no better, reduced to a twisted ruin with both claws torn away. His left arm ended in a sharp point above the elbow that was still coated in the dried blood of Ames and Mungo, but beneath his torso, another liquid pooled from the many holes in his armor.

Hester gave a small gasp upon seeing the wounds in Shrike's chest. Large, round ones, from where Mungo's hand cannon had repeatedly pierced his iron-clad skin and small, jagged dents from Maggs' machine gun littered his body. But the largest wound, the fatal blow Tom struck, extended out of his breastplate where his heart used to be. Mungo's cutlass jutted from a tear deep and wide enough that Hester could see straight through to the stained black grass below.

What really drew Hester's gaze, though, was Shrike's eyes. Once, they had been a constant in Hester's life. Eternally shining a sickly green glow, one that would, to anyone else, inspire terror and despair, but to Hester… She remembered the long nights laying upon a cot in Shrike's den in Strole, her face covered in bandages. Her thoughts were erratic back then; confused and angry, but with no knowledge why. She learned to feel safe under the twin green night-lights that shone from Shrike's head. It was calming, it was reassuring. But now, they were gone, never to shine again.

Anders stepped forward towards the carcass, and before Hester could protest, he wretched the sword from Shrike's chest and held it up to his flashlight. Mungo's cutlass, a stolen relic from some poor town Tunbridge Wheels had eaten, was surprisingly intact for its time in the swampy conditions. Rust coated its steel handguard here and there, but the majority of the blade was stained black by whatever liquid poured from the Stalker's body, coating and preserving the metal. Anders turned and held the sword out to Hester, hilt-first.

"You should keep this," Anders offered, "The Bird Roads are a dangerous path to tread. The headless one over there still has the sheath."

As Hester took the cutlass by the rayskin hilt, Spokes cut in, "You should give it a name. All the best swords have names in the stories. Something like Stalkersbane or the Blackblade…"

"It doesn't need a name." Hester took the sheath from Mungo's body and strapped the sword across her waist. Only heroes have swords with names, and if anyone was the hero in this world, it was Tom.

Anders, Spokes, and Hester gathered their shovels from the buggy in silence, they chose the gravesites in silence, and they broke ground in silence. Spokes dug her hole beside the headless body of Mungo, working quickly despite the shovel's relatively large size compared to her. Anders made his ditch alongside Ames, whose tall, lanky corpse required one of equal proportions.

Hester chose to dig Shrike's grave alone, even though his carcass necessitated an immense hole. Her hands filled with splinters as she dug her shovel deep into the wet ground. Her boots filled with mud as the hole grew deeper. Sweat poured from her furrowed brow as she dug. She didn't bother to wipe it away, she didn't protest when the shovels of Anders and Spokes joined her after each of them had finished their respective graves. They dug in silence, with only the songs of the frogs and insects accompanying the sounds of each shovel stroke.

The three kept their silence as they rolled Shrike's body into the grave. They didn't say a word as they shoveled earth back into the ditch, burying the Stalker's features with every shovelful of mud. Hester said nothing as the dirt covered the corpse's legs, his arms, his torso, and his face. He had been dead for over five hundred years, and only now was he given a burial.